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Prior to the construction of Charles de Gaulle Airport, Orly was the main airport of Paris. Even with the shift of most international traffic to Charles de Gaulle Airport, Orly remains the busiest French airport for domestic traffic and the second busiest French airport overall in terms of passenger traffic, with 27,139,076 passengers in 2011.[3]

Originally known as Villeneuve-Orly Airport, the facility was opened in the southern suburbs of Paris in 1932 as a secondary airport to Le Bourget. Before this two huge airship hangars had been built there by the engineer Eugène Freyssinet from 1923 on.

As a result of the Battle of France in 1940, Orly Airport was used by the occupying German Luftwaffe as a combat airfield, stationing various fighter and bomber units at the airport throughout the occupation.[10] As a result, Orly was repeatedly attacked by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), destroying much of its infrastructure, and leaving its runways with numerous bomb craters to limit its usefulness by the Germans.

After the Battle of Normandy and the retreat of German forces from the Paris area in August 1944, Orly was partially repaired by USAAF combat engineers and was used by Ninth Air Force as tactical airfield A-47. The 50th Fighter Group flew P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber aircraft from the airport until September, then liaison squadrons used the airfield until October 1945.[11]

In May 1958 Pan Am DC-7Cs flew to Los Angeles in 21 hr 56 min; TWA, Air France and Pan Am flew nonstop to New York in 14 hrs 10-15 min. Air France flew to Tokyo in 31 hr 5 min via Anchorage or 44 hr 45 min on a seven-stop 1049G via India. Air France's ten flights a day to London were almost all Viscounts; the only other London flight was Alitalia's daily DC-6B (BEA was at Le Bourget).

The brick-style southern terminal building consists of six floors. While the smaller basement level -1 as well as the upper levels 2, 3 and 4 contain only some service facilities, restaurants and office space, level 0 features the arrivals facilities as well as several shops and service counters. The airside area and departure gates are located on the upper level 1. The waiting area, which features several shops as well, houses gates A1-A10 and A40-A42 and is furthermore connected to the gate areas Hall A (gates A11-A27) and Hall B (gates B2-B20) to each side of the building.[13] 15 of the terminal's departure gates are equipped with jet-bridges, some of them are able to handle wide-body aircraft.

The western terminal has a different layout than Terminal Sud, consisting of two floors and a gate area of four "fingers" rather than a brick-style layout. The ground level 0 features the arrivals facilities including 8 baggage reclaim belts as well as several service facilites and shops. The departures area is located on level 1 with more stores and restaurants located here. This central departures area is connected to four gate areas named halls 1-4 which contain departure gates 10A-10P, 20A-20L, 31A-31F and 40A-40G respectively.[13] 23 stands at this terminal are equipped with jet-bridges, with several of them also able to handle wide-body aircraft.

Orly Airport is connected to the RER B train line at Antony train station by the Orlyval automatic shuttle. Orlyval is free to use between the two Orly terminals (west and south), however it costs 8,40 € between Antony and Orly airport.

On 3 June 1962, Air France Flight 007, a chartered Boeing 707 named the Chateau de Sully bound for Atlanta, U.S., crashed on take-off with 132 people on board; 130 of them were killed. The only survivors were two stewardesses seated in the rear of the plane. The charter flight was carrying home Atlanta's civic and cultural leaders of the day. At the time, this was the highest recorded death toll for an incident involving a single aircraft.

On 11 July 1973, Varig Flight 820, a Boeing 707, made a forced landing due to fire in a rear lavatory, incoming from Rio de Janeiro-Galeão. The aircraft landed 5 kilometers short of the runway, in a full-flap and gear down configuration. Due mainly to smoke inhalation, there were 123 deaths whilst 11 people survived (10 crew, 1 passenger).[23][24]